The New Horizon

New Horizons provides a technology-based innovation to the First Nation communities in North America to provide tele-dental and oral hygiene services. 

Our solution is to connect  remote indigenous communities with professional dentists and dental hygienists with our technology-based innovation. We use simple technology for connecting remote first nation communities as well as proprietary real-time app for our employees to perform the dental services effectively under the guidance of our professional dentists and dental hygienists. Our solution is unique because it has a human-centered solution along with technology. We preserve the culture and tradition, and overcome discrimination that exists in the current solutions delivering dental services. 

We first hire, train local First nation women to be our employees or entrepreneurs in the delivering the solution the First Nation communities. We provide them with the job tools, training, and our technology-based solution. We have designed and developed our solution within the regulatory restrictions and care has been taken to provide safe and approved dental and oral hygiene services to the First nation communities. No dental procedures, X-rays and will be conducted by our organization. 

Our problem at hand is isolated First Nation communities that live their are not receiving dental care on a regular basis. This affects the communities oral health. Many First Nation children in these communities end up having tooth decay. For example in a First Nation reserve called "Sioux Lookout area" there is a dental crisis pending. More than 80 % of five year olds have tooth decay. And approximately 86% of First Nation children aging from 3 - 5 have tooth decay. Oral health surgery rates in the "Sioux Lookout area" are 14 times higher than any average provincial rates.

Some factors that aggravate poor oral health in First Nation communities  are:

• The Costs of a dental visit is expensive 

• Far Isolation from major cities causes dentist to visit less often

• Lack of dental professional visits due to the communities harsh climate  

• Less or no access to healthy foods (which causes them to eat foods that damage their teeth)                                                                                   

Our solution is targeted towards the isolated First Nation communities/towns that live in North America. Currently, the (isolated) First Nation population have poor oral health and receive dental care on a irregular basis. 

Our solution will have a number of systemic and transformational impacts

1. First Nation communities will have access to quality  and periodic dental services. 

2.  Health outcomes in First Nation Communities will be improved because of oral hygiene which reduces the risk of cancer, diabetes, and                cardiovascular diseases.

3. First Nation communities will be empowered to solve this problem. This will help the communities not to feel discriminated against; while preserving culture and language, e.g. training and employing the community members and equipping them with the job tools. 

4.  We use technology to connect experts (e.g. dental hygienists and dentists) with First Nation populations (consistently) all year around. 

5. We solve government's burden to provide cost-effective and implementation efficient dental services for First Nation communities. 

To understand the needs of the Indigenous population in North America, Canada we have researched from a variety of sources. This research leads us to understand key statistics, connections, and depth involving my problem that we need to consider to find a solution. 

We have collected data about the problem, about the people, how many First Nation are affected by this oral health problem, how many people we can help, and what other programs or organizations are actively trying to make a difference to this problem. 

We have established advisors including professional dentists to learn more about the challenges, the potential impact of our solution in reducing mortality rates due to cardiovascular diseases, and chronic respiratory problems (UN SDG goals 3.4.1). 

Our solution has been designed taking into the constraints, culture, traditions and context of First nation communities. 

We already have a prototype of our solution and currently we are building out the technology application of our real-time app for feedback. We have engaged with professional dentists. We have a team working on different components. We have designed the solution and the training manual for the First nation employees. We have designed the tools, the procedures to use. We have reviewed and organized the innovative process to perform the services. We have planned a pilot this summer and the partnerships to be made before the summer. 

Our solution requires a human centered design and a simple technology to provide the dental services effectively. 

We have two technology components

1. The first technology component is connecting our First nation employees to professional dentists and dental hygienists. In addition, to connecting for service delivery, we need this technology for periodic training and have a effective engagement with our employees. We have developed a prototype online platform using Zoom. This app also has a record section where our First Nation employees can put a record of each customer session. 

2. The second use of our technology is a proprietary camera feedback application for our First Nation employees and professionals. We will be using miniature camera fitted consumer dental tooths such as tooth brushes to provide feedback if a tooth has been cleaned well and if the tooth brush has reached the locations of plaque and tartar in the tooth. There is an notification section in the app only accessed by First Nation employees to inform them if they cleaned each tooth that the customer has. 

We also will be developing an app for our customers. The app also provides a way for our customers to rate the service we provided and book an dental checkup appointment in advance. The app also provides customers with an opportunity to share any growing concern about their oral health with either a professional dentist employee or a First Nation employee. 

We plan to do a pilot this summer in one First Nation community. We plan to hire, train 10 First Nation women with our technology. Before the summer we will have our first iteration of the technology and app built out. Our plan is to have three dentists and six dental hygienists signed up on our application before the summer. 

We will also have the supplies and tools tested with the dentists and dental hygienists before we train our First nation employees. 

Our aim this summer is to pilot every day with 30 First Nation people, so in 3 months to reach 2,000 First Nation people. This pilot will give us a rigorous data and feedback from our customers, employees and dentists to further refine the technology and the solution. 

We hope to approach the regulatory bodies of dentistry and dental hygienists and independent dental hygienists to sign up to our platform. Our aim is to have 10,000 professionals signed up to provide the services to First nation communities. 

We will engage the government to support for a 1 year pilot to test the billing and reach the non-insured First nation communities with our solution. This is critical step to test our B2G solution and for demonstrating our solution can have a financial sustainability. 

By early 2023, we hope to be investment ready for our seed-stage fundraising. 

My impact goals for the next year are the following: 

1. Impact 2,000 First nation people in delivering oral and dental hygiene consoles through our application. 
2. Empower First Nation women to deliver the services locally to the people. We preserve culture and traditions, and overcome discrimination of the First nation communities through our solution.  
3. We will have the largest platform of signed dentists and dental hygienists to provide tele-dental consoles within their regulated territory. 
4. We will have a simple yet effective technology that can reduce the cost to the governments to provide similar services to the First Nation communities. 
5. We will have a team who are passionate, committed and capable to make this impact.

We will specify measure UN SDG goal 3.4.1: Reduce mortality rate attributed to cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes or chronic respiratory disease. 

We do this by providing direct dental and oral hygiene to the marginalized and underserved First nation communities. We know that in these communities there are poor dental hygiene leading to cardiovascular, cancers and chronic respiratory diseases. 

Our solution will help in reducing the long term mortality rates attributed to cardiovascular disease, cancer and respiratory diseases attributed to neglected and poor dental hygiene with in the First nation communities. 

We have identified three barriers that limit our impact this year. 

1. Technology: the technology barrier could be unreliable or have no internet availability in the First Nation communities. Our mitigation plan is to have an offline application and utilize asynchronous technologies while delivering the service. We are currently in the prototype stage of building out this technology and we hope will be tested our this summer in the pilot. 

2. Market: the market barrier is to be able to find and convince First Nation women to work for us in delivering this service. We understand that we may not be able to convince few of the women. Our mitigation plan is set up entrepreneurial women is setting up the service through a franchise system thus enabling the First nation communities to have independence to be self-entrepreneurs than being our employees.

3. Financial: a financial barrier is the imitation of the funding to do one pilot in the community. Ideally, we would like to pilot in 2 locations this summer to gain more insights from the customers. We will mitigate this barrier by fundraising from families and friends to pilot in two locations.

Our founding team consists of three members. We have known each other for the past 5 years. We live in the same neighborhood and we are driven to make an impact. We are have unusually unique background and interests. We have a mix of technology, marketing, communications and design skill sets. We are not interested in titles and we are currently focused on the priorities (plan) for this year. We have also established advisors from different fields to help us in guiding us. 

As a team, we respect each other's views and make decisions based on what is right given the constraints and context of the challenges. We want to succeed to bring impact to the people of the First Nations and we are humbled to work in this process. 

We also understand our limitations as a team and we think it is important to admit limitations which will help us to fill the gaps. For example, we are committed to travel this summer to the First nation communities  and learn from the community and test our solution through a pilot. This is provide us first hand to understand the experiences of those we serve. 

We dont have partnerships as yet, however we will have professional dental practices and independent professionals who will be our partners before we begin our pilot this summer. 

We will also engage for partnerships with the universities and colleges, dental consumer products (private sector) and First nation elders in the coming months.  

We are qualified for this prize becausewe are less than 24 years old. We have developed an innovative technology-based solution that is a game-changer on how we can deliver culturally relevant and financially sustainable effective dental & oral services to the First Nation communities. 

We have a solution that can solve an economic need (healthcare) in remote and rural First Nation communities in Ontario. We will use The Pozen Social Innovation Prize to advance our solution to the prototype and pilot stage.  This will mean will be piloting and impacting 2,000 First national people in delivering our solution this year. 

Secondly, we will engage in marketing & business development opportunities including partnership development with private and public sector. We will refine and develop out our final technology solution after feedback from our prototypes.